By Dale Nickey:
(Click here for parts 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1)
The story song is the toughest gig in songwriting. The song lyric format is taylor-made for the cut and paste Felliniesque’ imagery of a Dylan; or the run and gun pop couplets of The Beatles and The Beach Boys. However, constructing a story with a beginning, middle and satisfying ending; with rich characters and a good tune in the span of a few minutes? YOU try it. I have yet to succeed. I’ve written a wedding song and a Christmas Song. Both forms are childs play compaired to the story song. Here are some of the best…..
Number 10….. (Phantom 309)
Phantom 309 is a song written by Tommy Faile and released as a single by Red Sovine in 1967. Definitive version by Tom Waits (1995).
Ice Road Truckers meets The Twilight Zone. A great story song suitable for paranormal geeks and Nascar goons alike. Me, I like Tom Waits version of the song. You can imagine Waits’ scruffy persona slumped at the counter of an all night truck stop at about 3:00 a.m., Chesterfield King in one hand, cup of hot, black joe in the other, slowly spinning this yarn about a poor clueless hitchiker picked up by a benevolent ghost trucker. Plotline is so universal and durable, it was tweaked and borrowed for a subplot in “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure”. Remember Large Marge?
I heard Tom record this for posterity back in the mid 70′s when I attended his live recording of it on his “Nighthawks At The Diner” LP. If you listen closely, after Tom introduces the song by saying, “Well,… it’s story time again, hmmm…, This is a song a bout a truck driver,”… you can hear me in the audience saying “Yeah!” as I knew what was coming next. I heard him play it before @ the Troubadour. One of the great story songs. It always sounded like an episode of “The Twilight Zone” to me.
Wow glad I pulled up this performance
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